The Race

Two of John Bunyan's most famous allegories are The Heavenly Footman: A Description of the Man that Gets to Heaven and Pilgrim's Progress. It seems likely that the seed of both of these books comes from 1 Corinthians 9:24, "Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it." Bunyan believed that a man must run for his eternal life and not look back at the world, as Lot's wife had done. And in these two allegories, Bunyan urges and encourages people to run for heaven in spite of earthly hindrances and circumstances. In The Heavenly Footman, he impels us by saying, "The prize is heaven and if you will have it, you must run for it."